Guest: Julie Chang
Michelle:
Hey everyone, welcome to the “Pregnancy After 40” Podcast. I am your host Michelle Johnson. And today we are speaking with Julie Chang. Julie Chang is the author of “Cracking the Egg Myth” which focuses on improving your a quality which is extremely important when you're dealing with women who are 40 Plus or really 35 plus when your chances of pregnancy decreases significantly. This is a very, very detailed podcast. So I would say before you actually listen to it that you get a pen and paper because there are a lot of terms and information that you probably have heard of, but may not understand in detail so Julie talks about having a low AMH, she talks about getting pregnant, but also at the same time staying pregnant having a healthy pregnancy. She talks about her nutritional based, her nutrition based keto diet, which helps definitely in getting pregnant. We talked about folate versus folic acid. We actually talk about acupuncture and how that actually helps a woman's body and preparing her to become pregnant. She gives daily fertility tips if you go to her website and register and sign up for her newsletter. And also she talks about improving your partner's sperm quality and how important that is in getting pregnant as well. So, great episode again, get your pen and paper. I think you really enjoy this podcast. And with that, we welcome Julie. Julie, thank you for joining us today.
Julie:
Oh, it's a pleasure and an honor. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle:
Sure. So we're just going to give a brief background about you so you can tell everyone what you do what you've been doing. I mentioned you've been practicing for 20 years. Just let everyone know what you do.
Julie:
Yeah, absolutely. I am trained as an acupuncturist. So I have a clinical practice in San Diego, California. I have had this practice since 2000. So I've been seeing clients in person for 20 plus years actually, and so I've been in it for quite a while specializing in fertility for women who are in their late 30s and 40s. And I have a lot of clients also outside of San Diego, who I work with one on one over the phone, and internationally as well as within the US. So it's just really a great passion of mine to provide the education for women so that they feel more empowered on this journey, which can be quite frustrating. And I know confusing. So hopefully I can help shed some light during this podcast.
Michelle:
Sure. So what prompted you to actually write a book on egg quality?
Julie:
Because there's a huge gap. I feel like I feel like there's a huge gap in terms of having the right information. The biggest misconception that almost everyone has, and certainly the people who have come to me have expressed surprise is the fact that they can improve the egg quality. And so many of my clients have come in being told by their doctors that it's not possible to get pregnant. And as a woman, I find that is the biggest disservice that we can do to women to just cut off all of their chances of really having their dreams come true. And so that was a really big push for why I wanted to write this book is really just to dispel the myth that you can't, that egg quality cannot be improved and it's fixed, even if your doctor says that, because it's been proven time and time again with my own clients and with certainly many other people around the world who have been able to get pregnant either naturally or with IVF in their well into their 40s.
Michelle:
So, you know I told you earlier that I kind of went through your book. So one of the things that stuck out I'm having in front of me, but you were speaking of one of your patients, and you told her basically stop researching the internet and just do when I say and I know you know, for a lot of women, you know, even when I got pregnant over 40 and again over 40, the first thing we do is go to the internet and this is so daunting. The statistics than you know everything they tell you. And you know, if you do get pregnant over 40, you know, the chances of you having a successful pregnancy. So yeah, I don't know how you got to that point. But it definitely seems it's probably easier said than done with a lot of people, but sounds like it's good advice. But what prompted you in that situation to tell her that?
Julie Chang:
Well, the thing is, you know, like I've said before, a lot of people just come into my office, very discouraged based on what their doctors have said. I mean, like, they're literally in tears when I first see them. And so one of the biggest issues for women in their late 30s and 40s is because of all of this information that you're getting from the internet that's telling you how difficult it is to get pregnant. And so that messaging isn't coming just from your doctors. It's coming from everywhere. From media, social media, from the forums, from everything that you read the statistics because the statistics, the statistics are mind blowingly horrible for IVF. Right? And so, but part of, you know, in working with me or even just listening to my message is women have to understand that their bodies are different and they have to stop comparing themselves to everyone else. Because everyone's journey is different. Every situation is different. You and your husband if you have a partner or male partner or if you're single, you can't your age, your physical condition, your nutritional status, your lifestyle, it lumps you as, as an individual and you have to treat yourself as such. And yes, this the statistics are helpful to kind of give you a realistic guideline. But it's not the end all be all of whether or not you'll be successful.
And a lot of what I do with my clients is really provide that emotional hand holding so that they stay focused on their goal, instead of getting distracted by all of the, that negative attention, that negative focus about how difficult it is my eggs are getting old. You know, my AMH is too low and all of that, because all of that chatter serves to just really take your take a woman's focus off of what she really wants, which is our dream to have a healthy baby.
Michelle:
Right, okay. I know you mentioned a couple things there but I'm going to go through a couple of chapters in your book and just discuss those to see if you can discuss those from early on you talk about or the first chapter is why getting pregnant is more difficult now. And you state that you know, as we age ourselves, become less efficient, you compare our bodies to cars and how things wear down. Can you just talk about a little bit how that affects the cells and all that how that affects egg quality and women getting pregnant.
Julie:
Sure, so and then please feel free to jump in if you need me to clarify so. So the comparison to the car is basically, you know, just as you need to take in your car for maintenance, and you need to do certain things to make sure that it's stays move and running, and doing everything that you need to do. It's the same with our bodies, right? We need to take care of it with exercise, eating well, taking supplements, if necessary, being fit physically, as well as emotionally. The problem is for most of us, for most of us, we abuse our bodies pretty hard, up until we're probably about 30 is when we realize that we're mortal. And, and then, you know, the consequences of what we have been doing actually have an effect, right.
So, the thing about and because we, you know, for many of us, we partied too hard, drank too much ate like crap, like all of that has a cumulative effect. And so that causes our body to age and it's just a natural byproduct of just living. And, so that so that affects all of ourselves that affects our skin cells. So you see our we get more wrinkles. And as we age, we get more sunspots, the skin sag. So that's the most visible deterioration, or our eyesight doesn't, you know, gets worse as well with time. So those are kind of more outward expressions of aging. So it's the same thing internally, our eggs will also age and accumulate damage just from as a natural byproduct of time and exposure to environmental toxins. So, so part of that, so it's important to realize that just like we can protect our bodies with sunscreen, with cleaning up our diet, we can do the same thing externally as well as internally we can clean up the environment that the eggs are in, and that will help to improve the egg quality.
Michelle:
Okay, so how can using sunscreen how does that affect your body /or cells and the ability to get pregnant?
Julie Chang:
So I was using sunscreen as an example of protecting. Sorry, I wasn't making that clear as a way of protecting your, your skin cells from damage from aging, but actually, now that we're talking about sunscreen can actually be harmful to fertility as well, because of the chemicals in sunscreen. So I actually recommend people switch to more natural sunscreens that use physical blockers, like zinc oxide, or titanium dioxide instead of the chemical blockers, because everything that we put on our skin will get absorbed into our bloodstream, and then it'll affect cells including our egg cells. So that's actually a sidebar.
Michelle:
Wow, that's amazing. Okay, so you also talk about testing. I know a lot of women go in to their doctor, their OB’s to get testing and for a quality is there a special type of testing or ultrasound that a doctor can do to test egg quality?
Julie Chang:
No, there isn't a test that will determine it directly. So the most pop the most popular one is currently AMH. It used to be FSH but that was phased out and so AMH has replaced that and as a test of ovarian reserve and on top of that usually the fertility doctors will do an ultrasound to see how many follicles you know how many potential egg cells that there are. The problem with that is that then there's if there's a low AMH, there's association of well if the AMH is low, then that means I can't get pregnant, which is not true. The only the low AMH age is only is really only relevant if a person is going through a medicated fertility cycle. I indicates how it indicates how well a woman is likely to respond to medications.
So someone with really low AMH probably won't respond well to fertility medications, but it doesn't mean that they can't get pregnant. Most of the women that come to me and get pregnant have low AMH. That's why they were told by their doctors that it's too late for them and they need to use donor eggs. But there isn't really a direct test of you know of egg quality.
Michelle:
Now is this done by an OB or is it usually done specifically by a fertility…ok?
Julie Chang:
Yeah, it's typically done by fertility doctor, although a woman can request our GYN to test for that. It's just that most women when they, when they go to a gynecologist, they usually don't have enough information to be able to request that directly because the gynecologist will just refer the woman directly to an RE or reproductive endocrinologist who's the fertility doctor and that's who starts to kind of spearhead all of the fertility testing.
Michelle:
Okay. So I know I've seen several posts in the Pregnancy After 40 group that speaks of PCOS and I have no idea what that is. No one's ever told me anything like that. So can you tell us what that is and how that affects a woman's ability to get pregnant?
Julie Chang:
Yeah, so PCOS is polycystic ovarian syndrome. And it's a condition where there are just a lot of cysts in the ovaries. It's not as typical for women, for me to treat women with PCOS. Typically the people who come to me are in their late 30s and 40s and where egg quality is the primary issue. The problem with PCOS is that because there are so many cysts growing at once, it can unbalance the hormonal regulation and so producing way too much testosterone. And so, and that can that can affect the you know, a woman's ability to eot pregnant. And so when they go in and then the fertility doctor recommends doing IVF one of the biggest risks is that they can have what's called hyper stimulate to the medications and their ovaries just kind of respond out of control and they're just really way too many way too many eggs developing at one time. And so it can become actually quite dangerous for a woman. I actually recently had a patient who came in and she was younger and had so many eggs respond that she had to be hospitalized. So that's kind of one of the concerns that the doctor has to be very watchful about a woman's response to medications with PCOS to and then if trying naturally, PCOS can manifest in that many women don't have periods and obviously that can interfere with their ability to get pregnant naturally. Which is why many of them need to have IVF.
Michelle:
Okay. Wow. So I've seen several posts of women saying that they believe that they were in the early phases of menopause. But either one, some of them still got pregnant, or two, a lot of them wonder if they can still get pregnant. So, how does this relate to you have a term in there POI, if you can explain what that is and how it relates to menopause.
Julie Chang:
Yeah, absolutely. So this is where you've got to be very careful about how you read blood test results, because they're only numbers. All right. And so I think a lot of people have this tendency to equate this number in, and then this label and identify with this label, you know, on their, on their journey, and so they kind of get trapped. When, however they're diagnosed with early in menopause, it might be because of their blood levels or maybe because they're menstrual cycles starts becoming irregular, however it manifests. Oftentimes, and you know, quote unquote, early, it's different with every person. So, for me, as long as a woman is getting a period, relatively regularly, they still have a chance of getting pregnant naturally. There are also women who have who have stopped getting periods regularly or completely and still can get pregnant with treatment or, you know, with some with changes in their lifestyle, and I've had many cases of those. So that's why I caution people to kind of hang their hat on that early menopause label and diagnosis because it doesn't necessarily mean that they can't cannot get pregnant, it just might mean that they need to make some shifts in their lifestyle or, or look into other treatments and strategies or a more natural that will help their body do what it's designed to do. So someone who's in their, you know, early 40s, mid 40s, late 40s, who's starting irregular starting to get irregular periods, I would really encourage them to look at incorporating other more natural strategies to help regulate their cycles.
Michelle:
Now, has it been in your experience that a lot of women have come to where their doctors have said, hey, you've already started menopause and then they just kind of get discouraged…have any of them come to you and they've actually gotten pregnant.
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Julie Chang:
Yeah, so one of my most kind of, and I love using her as an example, because one of my clients didn't have her period on her own since her early 20s. I mean, for pretty much, almost 20 years. And so she came to me when she was like, 38, and she had never gotten appeared on her own and her doctors told her it was impossible, because and so, you know, so she worked with me, we work together, she made the changes I recommended and she she now has she just finished treatment with me a few months ago for her third baby. She came back for each baby.
Michelle
Wow.
Julie Chang:
Yeah, I mean there I really want women to understand, you know, to believe in believe in themselves. Like if they really want this, it's, it's on there it's on them to do the due diligence to do the research to find out what other strategies there are to help them.
Michelle
Okay, so Okay, so I know when your chapters, you talk about enhancing a quality and there's a story of Mary. And I don't know if it's the same person we're speaking of, but she initially did several rounds or a couple rounds of IVF. And they were unsuccessful. And he recommended, I guess, a strategy or program or things for her to do. And then that led to her third cycle of IVF. Next up, is this the same person? Yeah, this is Merrick. Yep. Okay.
Julie Chang:
I just don't remember her name because I had changed her name in the book.
Michelle:
But how long does it take to start improving and quality once? Once a client of yours starts implementing changes in their life? And they actually follow what you say?
Julie Chang:
Yeah. So that's a great question because people kind of have a very unrealistic, unrealistic expectation of how long it takes. So the eggs that you oscillate now that you're dropping now, they they took several months of maturation to prepare for oscillation. So everything so whatever you start doing now, it only affects the eggs, months down the road. So realistically, when I work with clients, I tell them don't. And it depends on their age as well. I mean, especially if they're in their 40s. Don't expect anything with at least three months of changes or treatment. For most women working with me, it's going to be six months to 12 months. So this is a long term goal of improving the egg quality enough So that because it's not just about getting pregnant, we also want the egg quality to be good enough so that she stays pregnant because it's one thing to get pregnant but it's another thing to stay pregnant for another nine months for the embryo.
Toward the end, it depends on their age as well I mean especially if they're in their 40s don't expect anything, at least three months of changes or treatment for most women working with me it's going to be six months to 12 months. So this is a long term goal of improving the egg quality enough so that because it's not just about getting pregnant. We also want the egg quality to be good enough so that she stays pregnant because it's one thing to get pregnant but it's another thing to stay pregnant for another nine months for the embryo quality meat to be good, that the baby's healthy because that's, that's another concern for, you know, women in their 40s right. So it takes a little time. It takes a little time for the, you know, for the changes to have an impact on, on the eggs enough to improve, to the point where you can have a healthy baby right
Michelle:
so it's kind of like a analogy like you know for women they gain all this weight during nine months of pregnancy and then they want to lose the weight like immediately a month after having a baby and it's kind of like well, it took you nine to 10 months to get here so at least give yourself that amount of time to get, you know, to get rid of the weight as well but you know you've had years of maybe doing something with your body, but toxins and you know all these other things meeting bad and all that so you know it makes sense to give your body some time to, or if you're a quality to, to improve. You know, having it won't happen immediately. But speaking of the toxins I know you speak of BPAs. I know I'm saying this right, is it Vitaly. I found weird, isn't it about Sally, like, the peas not there. Okay, so how do these things, how do they affect a quality, how do we increase the amount of them in our lives.
Julie Chang:
So, they are affected at the DNA level. And that's really where we're really concerned about is because they mimic estrogen. They affect your homeowner in the regulation. They affect the development of the eggs. And so, and there have been so many studies that have proven that out. So the easiest way is really by looking at what you're exposing yourself to on a daily on a daily basis. Right. And so, this includes, so these are compounds like balance, BPA, which is very commonly known. And the easiest way I would say is to reduce plastics biggest source of these, these estrogen mimicking compounds, is to replace your plastics, with glass containers. Stop cooking your stuff in plastics, the convenient foods like that you buy frozen, they're in plastic that are lined with these chemicals. So you take them out on glass, and then cook them in glass microwave and microwave them in the glass. So really getting rid of your exposure to plastic especially foods that are being heated right so coffee cups the Styrofoam cups, it's hot liquid. You don't want your hot liquids touching plastic. Otherwise other the other really common route of exposure would be your personal care products. So, you know, stuff like makeup and, you know, the creams, just all of stuff that you put on your skin. You want it to look for products that are more natural, naturally based basically look at a label, and you'll if you if you can't pronounce the ingredients, it's probably not a good fit for your skin. If it's something that you don't feel comfortable eating, it's probably not a good fit for your skin either. So that's kind of, you know, that's, that's one way to gauge how good or natural the product is for you.
Michelle:
Okay, yeah, so I mean, that really kind of makes me just, not just in the realm of improving a quality or trying to reproduce but just generally overall, and I can see a lot of these things is being linked to cancer and how, you know, other other things I know just over the last couple years just know my father especially. To this day, you know, now he won't give us something plastic hat or a cup of coffee, he won't take it or heating something he's like I don't want styrofoam I don't want plastic I don't like any of that stuff, you know and I know with my son that I had a movie a year and a half old initially I was giving him baby food which is in the plastic containers which were a little bit cheaper and then you know he mentioned, you know they don't have glass containers, where they had the baby foods I actually switched over to getting baby with a blast. That was, you know, a glass as opposed to the plastic. But, you know, some people they say don't use deodorant anymore because everything, our body absorbs everything I guess you don't even realize how much we do, even just, you know, heating things up in the microwave and how we're just consuming that altogether so it's really good overall advice that we probably all need to take keto
Julie Chang:
right and it's because it's affecting ourselves at a DNA level. And so, and if so affects egg cells differently than it does potentially cancer cells, but it's all comes down to the DNA level right and so you want to reduce your exposure to all of that, because it's not just your egg quality it's also your baby's health as well. That, that you need to consider, because your babies exposed to your environment within your body. And so the less exposure that your baby has to it then the healthier the baby will be
Michelle:
okay. So you have another chapter on sleep, and melatonin. How do these things affect a quality and reproducing.
Julie Chang:
So, I love, I love making my clients sleep because it's great because they are getting permission for me to sleep, eight or nine hours which is really what they afford what most women need. And so the thing about sleep, is that that's the time that our bodies heal itself right it, you know, during the daytime it's busy digesting food is busy, keeping up with your brain, you know you're active. You're walking you're working, you're doing whatever you're doing during the day. And so at night It's time for your mind to heal itself to repair itself to recycle, so anything that, you know, anything that's produced as powder, as part of the natural byproduct of all of the biological biochemical processes that happen in your body that needs to be recycled and eliminated. So all of that is done during the sleep during when you sleep. And so that's basically cleaning up the body's environment and allowing your eggs to really be in the healthiest environment possible. Melatonin is a really important in, it helps with. It's an antioxidant and so it protects the egg quality. And so it has a very direct effect and studies have shown that it has a very direct effect to protecting the egg quality. And so you need to have enough sleep enough good quality sleep, not just the number of hours in bed but actually being asleep in you know in deep sleep so that your body can can do its job of repairing itself and healing itself and just really so that when you wake up you're feeling refreshed. And that's really what I recommend to clients is get enough sleep so that you feel like you're fresh, you're refreshed. When you wake up, and for most women that's usually eight to nine, nine hours of sleep.
Michelle:
And do you have a recommended. I guess pre sleep process for women because you know a lot of times we're up and we're doing things. Maybe we're reading and we're on our phones, before, right before we go to bed.
Julie Chang:
And so, honestly, that is the biggest thing that that's the most difficult thing for women to do is to get off their phones, because you got for many women they get stuck in the whole Instagram Stories looking at the Facebook post and just really kind of getting, you know immersed in other people's business, instead of instead of really focusing on themselves. So, getting off the phone is really important. Just having, you know, just as you would with a child, you would with a child you would create a bedtime routine right. And the reason for doing that is because the brain loves routine, the brain loves consistency. So if you create a bedtime routine that is comforting to you that helps relax you and get you into the sleep mode. That would be really helpful. So like reading from like a real physical book. Having a hot bath at the end of the day, connecting with your partner husband. Those are all very relaxing things that can help train your mind to really kick in once it gets dark and prepare you for sleep. It's about having a routine.
Michelle:
All right. Um, so, another one your chapters is dedicated to diet. What are some of the things that women should immediately removed from their diets if they're trying to conceive.
Julie Chang:
Soy. A lot of people eat too much soy products. So like, they drink massive amounts of soy milk or their soy in their protein bars, there's a lot of hidden soy, because it's a cheap protein, and it's a cheap filler. So, the problem with soy that is that it has a lot of plant estrogens and so that can interfere with our own hormonal regulation. And so, reducing or completely eliminating that ideally would be really great.
Getting rid of the some of the vegetable oils that you cook with. So if you're using like canola oil or peanut oil to cook with those are really harmful and get oxidized very easily to in the body. And so instead substituting it with like coconut oil. I actually recommend cooking with grass fed butter or ghee. Those are much more beneficial for preconception stage, and subid. Just really getting rid of that, those type of oils, completely. Obviously, honestly, for, I don't know if it's obvious but for a lot of women, they eat too much sugar, and I really reducing the sugar in intake because sugars, very inflammatory is important. People tend to equate fruit with vegetable and with vegetables and fruit should be treated as a dessert, it shouldn't just be kind of something that you grab because it's convenient and, you know, and it tastes good. You really want to treat it with more respect because there is a lot of natural sugars in the fruit. And so just being kind of more careful about the amount that you consume would be would be beneficial.
Michelle:
Okay, so what about the first thing, who is is grabbing lunch. A lot of times, I'm going to a fast food place or even even slow food. Is there an alternative to fast food or just picking something out while picking something up while they're out and about, that you would suggest.
Julie Chang:
Yeah, so I recommend people just make more during when they make dinner. A lot of people make their own dinners, so making a bigger portion so that they have leftovers for lunch. If that's not going to be possible and they're, you know, buying takeout or eating out with their co workers, then I would focus on eating more proteins and vegetables and reducing the carbs so reducing the breads, the flour, sorry the breads and pastas, because those are very filling foods, but they're not, they don't offer nutrients, the way that proteins and vegetables do.
Michelle:
It's interesting you started off talking about soy reducing soy in your diet and I've known that to be like an alternative for a lot of people instead of drinking cow's milk, they're drinking soy milk juice. Do you have an alternative to soy milk.
Julie Chang:
Yeah, just drink water.
Okay. Honestly, just drink water there's nothing wrong with water, your body is mostly water your baby's mostly water, it needs water. And so kind of training yourself to enjoy wet water in different ways like you know, adding adding some lemons or fruits in there to kind of change the taste of it is would be great just learning how to drink more water with him more beneficial. But if if they need some sort of dairy substitute, obviously, there's like coconut milk or the nut milks right almond milk. Those type of milks would be better alternatives to soy.
Michelle:
And if you have a massive list. We have I saw it in the book of just like different things that people can eat and what's good and what's not. So that I believe is in your diet chapters at Fred. Yeah. And there's several pages of that anyone wants to look at that. So, you also discuss leptin is about leptin. Mm hmm. I have no idea what that is. So if you can just tell us what that is and how that also affects the effects the ability, women getting pregnant or their a quality.
Julie Chang:
Yeah, so, um, so the reason why you know a lot of people don't. Because Leptin is associated with weight loss and that's really kind of the context that that people may have heard about leptin. However, their hat and. However, there have been a lot of studies that have shown that leptin leptin can also interfere with fertility. And so, and typically, we're more concerned with leptin. It's a hormone. When weight is an issue for a lot of women's weight can be an issue when as they get older, and that can affect their fertility. And so, we want to take a look at and so one way, not a lot, doctors aren't going to look at leptin just kind of as a default. So, it's more as an information informational, kind of, I guess, guideline that added in the book because it is something that is, you know, relatively unknown in blogs and online that so for them to be aware of because you can have depending if you're overweight or even underweight leptin can be an issue and it's really just basically at the core is weight wise, you try, you want to try to be in in kind of your standard weight for your for your height. That's really the easiest way for me to explain it is that that you know, you don't want, if you're obese or if you're overly thin. I'm just trying to work your weight more towards kind of the that bell curve, more towards that the average. Because studies have shown that just losing a little bit of weight can help with improving fertility, or On the flip side, if you're too thin adding a little bit of adding a little bit more can also improve your fertility quite significantly and I've seen that in both cases, with many clients. And so that's really kind of the takeaway is just be conscious about, you know, really being healthy in terms of just making sure you're moving around because your body, your body is designed to move.
Michelle:
So I know a lot of people have spoken in the group as well, that they went on the keto diet and then right after they, you know, was someone that for some time that they got pregnant and that they really associated being on a keto diet to help them get pregnant. Is that something that you discuss with your, your patients.
Julie Chang:
Yeah. Yeah. So that's a huge part of the nutritional aspect is really and that's one of the key ingredient really that I find is missing for most women is is fat, they don't have enough fat in their body in their body. At least the good fat that's necessary for reproduction. And so that's why I go back to. I really emphasize people eating incorporating more saturated fats like the grass fed butter and the grass fed ghee and coconut oil. Because, because we're trained to stay away from that and it's actually quite it's essential for brain development it's essential for the baby because when you think about a baby, a baby is pretty much water fat and protein. That's pretty much what a baby's can, like, building blocks wise is. So if you don't have the, the foundational foundational elements for a baby to thrive. It's going to be very difficult to get pregnant and so I've noticed. And so that's why the nutritional plan that I recommend to my clients is very keto bass, so it's just a very clean keto because keto can be done. In many ways, and it's not always necessarily the cleanest. And so, but what I recommend is keto.
Michelle:
Yeah. So somewhere you were you had some steps to treat poi ain't mentioned, I was eating foods with plenty of Foley. Can you describe or explain the difference between folate and folic acid which a lot of us are told to take in our prenatals. When we get pregnant before we get pregnant.
Julie Chang:
Yeah, so, falling is the natural form of the vitamin, whereas folate is the synthetic form. And so, there have been studies have shown that supplementation with folic acid helps to reduce neural tube defects right where the spinal column, close the defect would be that the spinal cord spinal tube doesn't close properly. And so, so that's why they, the US and many other countries started adding folic acid, as part of our grains in our grains. The issue with folic acid is that it is not absorbable by our bodies as much because many of us have these genetic variations that don't allow us to convert it to the full eight, the method, the full form that our body uses methylfolate. And so that's why I recommend taking your prenatals that have Foley, and not fully acid, because the folic acid can potentially just build up in the body and become more harmful than helpful, whereas the full eight form your body can utilize and whatever it doesn't need then it can excrete out.
Michelle:
Okay. All right, good, good information.
So, Julie has several other chapters and she talks about just different issues but I just wanted to touch on improving the sperm quality.
Julie Chang:
Yeah, your partner and how do you get there so you know the woman in a woman's made all these changes how do you, how does those changes affect the male in his sperm quality in this whole process. So everything. Well, almost everything that I recommend for the woman also applies to the men. Definitely the nutritional recommendations apply. There are very rare exceptions that might Oh supplements may be a little bit different for men, but for the most part, everything that I recommend it does also apply for them to the men as well. And the reason why the sperm addressing the sperm quality is important is because the man is the man is donating 50% contributing 50% of his DNA to the embryo. Right. And so, so the better that his sperm quality is, the less pressure it'll be on the egg quality. And so it and a lot of men just kind of have this oh my semen analysis is fine so I don't need to do anything. The issue with that is, there's no such thing as perfect sperm, this is there's no such thing as perfect eggs, you know, our cells can always be better, it can always be healthier. And so, the, you know, the more the better quality the sperm can be, then the, then the easier it'll be for the woman as well to get pregnant. And so that's really what I want men to understand is that they also have a part of this process as well and it's not just on the women to make all of the changes, the more that the man can be part of the process and in terms of making the nutritional changes taking some supplements, taking care of themselves, exercising, all that, that will really help to support the woman in this process.
Michelle:
Okay, so do you ever have sessions where you invite the men or encouraging men to come in with the, with your female patients just, just to describe that or you know get them to understand how important it is for them to change as well or do you just kind of leave it on your patients let them explain it to their to them.
Julie Chang:
I always invite that guys to come in, especially during the for initial consult just because that's really where I share a lot of the initial information, but a lot of men come to me for treatment as well. So, men are starting to realize that, and take, take the responsibility to improve his health and his sperm quality, and so and that's been really encouraging to see that more and more, more and more men are taking that responsibility.
Michelle:
Wow, it is. So I know that you are an acupuncturist. So how does acupuncture help and how often do you recommend that. How often How long do you recommend a patient to go through acupuncture.
Julie Chang:
Oh, actually I'm sure is amazingly helpful. I'm biased. And so the thing about acupuncture is most people have a fear of needles right. But the needles are really thin. And so most people fall asleep during the treatment. So I would say, don't let the fear of the needles, stop you from trying from trying it because it can, for some women, it can make a difference from being successful or not. And so, because so many of my clients have been trying for years to afford to get pregnant and they come to me and I do acupuncture on them, as well as doing the other, like counseling with the lifestyle, and they get pregnant, you know, even though their doctors have told him that it's not possible so they would be considered miracles. In terms of frequency of treatment, I would recommend at least once a week, if, if it's possible twice a week would be more ideal. It depends on the age. The, the, like if you're in your 40s I do recommend kind of going more frequently twice a week. And then also if you're doing IVF if you're in an active cycle twice a week, up until the pregnancy test is what I would recommend, and then if if you're pregnant to continue to acupuncture in wealth into the first trimester to support the, the pregnancy. And, and then from there becomes more optional but I think acupuncture is quite critical during that implantation phase. And during that first trimester. Did I answer fully your questions. Oh, how does how did that work. It was. It works by improve it very simply the most simplest answer to that is how it improves the blood flow to the reproductive organs. So if you think about like how, when you have a paper cut your body just automatically does its own thing right and improve it sends the healing agents to that paper cut to heal itself so that you know you're not bleeding to death so that the cut closes up and new cells are into place. So if you think about the acupuncture as little micro cuts a little micro paper cuts, then it's telling the body. Oh, you know, there's a little bit of damage in this area can you send more blood to this area, and so like the my particular style of needling I put acupuncture needles around kind of in the lower abdominal area. And so it's bringing more blood flow to that area in bringing more blood flow it's bringing more nutrients, so you have more nutrients to the ovaries and from, you know, improved equality you have more nutrients to the uterine lining to help with developing that uterine lining for implantation, So that's kind of basically what it's doing.
Michelle:
I'm so happy to have you on here because I never knew what acupuncture really was just think of it as like this ancient treatment of some sort, in, like, you just gonna, I don't know what we think is going to happen but it you know I've heard it's been very relaxing. And then it's helped a lot of people as well get pregnant so but I'd never knew exactly why or how but that definitely makes sense as far as the planning and nutrients so I feel a lot better. If nothing else, it would be me. But so is every week. We've gone through a lot of things that truly just basically touched on in her book but she goes way more in depth and a lot of the areas that we spoke about she also talks about lifestyle changes that promote fertility supplements for enhancing fertility and also testing your nutritional status. So Julie thank you so much for coming on. So if anyone's interested in getting a thorough understanding or just reading through these book in a quality, please check it out. We will eventually upload a link hopefully to a book on the pregnancy after 40 website once it's up. But again, Julie teen happy. How can people find you on social media and how can they find the book.
Julie Chang:
So they can find the book on Amazon, it's called cracking the egg myth proven ways to improve egg quality, and they can find me on my website that's probably the most comprehensive way and then if they opt into my email list and they'll get 1010 days of tips fertility tips that they can implement right away. I'm also on Instagram and Facebook just not super effective. I'm not really a great social media person, I don't even remember my handles.
My account names that, but the best ways is from my website fertility expert calm and expert is eggspurt.com, they can, and you can or whoever's listening. If you have any questions feel free to email me directly at Julie at fertility expert calm and now I'm happy to answer any questions.
Michelle:
And also leave your information on the show notes. But again, Julie, thank you so much for coming on and I hope you guys check out her book, Julie. Thanks again and you have a wonderful day.
Julie Chang:
Thank you Michelle It was a pleasure.
Michelle:
Same here thanks. Bye.